Marianne Merten
What do Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, Cairo’s pyramids and Cape Town’s Table Mountain have in common? They all share the same international time zone.
Because of this accident of geography, all three will receive much international media attention at the turn of the millennium.
The BBC has already decided to capture Table Mountain on camera as the clock ticks over into January 1 2000. CNN is also considering the Mother City as part of its special events coverage of the breaking of the new millennium.
The turn of the century is an opportunity Cape Town officials are determined not to let slip from their hands. Celebrations in the Mother City kick off on September 22 – the start of the 100-day countdown to New Year’s Eve – and will continue past the big night into March.
The Cape Town City Council’s millennium manager, George Gittins, says the city is already one of the top four international tourist destinations and “is looking to create an experience” which will entrench it on the tourism map.
“It’s a chance of one in 1 000 years and we’d be silly to miss the opportunity,” says Gittins.
The council has dished out concessions and is co-ordinating events. Local event managers ESP – eight guys who describe themselves as Cape Flats born and bred – are in charge of the countdown.
They will also take care of the post- millennium hangover cure – in the form of international jazz artists brought out next March as an extension of the Dutch North Sea Jazz Festival.
If plans by the South African Millennium Trust – a national initiative to promote the country – work out, President Thabo Mbeki and former president Nelson Mandela will spend the night in the Mother City under the glare of television cameras and in front of microphones to light the last of 100 torches on Robben Island.
But a presidential representative warns that no decision has yet been taken on where the country’s top man and Madiba will spent the last hours of the 20th century. The Committee on the African Renaissance in the Office of the President will first have to meet to discuss what will be appropriate for the night.
Despite raised eyebrows and a lot of head shaking, the scheduled multimillion-rand New Year’s Eve street bash has been officially awarded to Johannesburg company Gestomar.
Over the past few weeks there have been some internal changes and “readjustments”. The man initially linked to the event is no longer with the company. Instead, a subsidiary, Fix Trade 178, trading as The Cape Town Millennium Project, was formed to run the show.
Project co-ordinator Shaun Smith says they are in the process of finalising the list of events, confident all’s on track for the extravaganza.
The mother of a party in the Mother City – sponsored by at least four corporates – should include something for everyone: a laser show on Table Mountain, floodlights throughout the city bowl and a party from the civic centre across town to Thibault Square.
There will be a masked ball at the historic Castle, ballroom dancing at the Good Hope Centre and loudspeakers and television screens on the Grand Parade. Separate parties are planned for the townships of Nyanga and in Strandfontein on the Cape Flats.
Says Gittins: “There’s a massive tourism potential and opportunity to employ people.”
But not everything is going to be glitz and glamour. ESP wants to draw attention to all the people living in the Mother City.
Operations director Billy Domingo says a candlelight ceremony in Green Market Square on September 22, the eve of the One City Festival, will launch the 100-day countdown.
Every night at 7pm residents will be encouraged to light a candle of remembrance. One hundred Khayelitsha residents have already started making them. Proceeds from the sales will go to charity. Says Domingo: “The whole of Cape Town can do something. This is not a rich, elite thing. This is in your face.”